


Brother Instinct

by GalahadWilder



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Dc get yo shit together, Dick Grayson deserves better, or Jason is gonna do it for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 22:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14030550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Bruce and Jason find out that Dick has been keeping a secret from the rest of the family, and decide to take revenge on his behalf.





	Brother Instinct

Bruce didn’t know.

Even now, even after all he’d been through, that thought felt almost blasphemous to Jason. How could Bruce not know? Bruce knew everything.

And yet Bruce didn’t know. Hadn’t known.

“I _sanctioned_ her,” he’d growled, the console of the Batcomputer creaking under his tightening fingers. “I _let her stay in my city_.”

“Bruce…” Jason said, his own hands clasping impotently at the handles of his guns. “You didn’t know.”

“I’m his FATHER!” Bruce said. (Not “I’m a detective,” Jason noticed. It was… comforting, to his surprise.) “I should have… I should have investigated!”

He’d never seen his father so taken aback, never seen him at such a loss for words. Which was fair. Jason didn’t know what to say either.

Instead, he drew one of his guns and checked the slide. He was going to be busy tonight.

“It looks like Dickie Bird’s better at keeping secrets than we gave him credit for,” were the words that came tumbling out of his mouth. He regretted them almost instantly, but then, they were already said.

Bruce looked up, saw Jason readying his guns, immediately knew what he was planning to do. His mouth compressed to a thin, hard line—the Batman scowl—and Jason prepared himself for another lecture on killing.

Instead, what Bruce said was, “Don’t get caught.”

* * *

  
All of these were the things that The Red Hood was thinking about when he found her on a rooftop in Blüdhaven. She’d left her gang behind in Robinson Park after the War Games fiasco, and had gone back to her previous work as a vigilante after the Hood’s own style—actually, her file read a lot like his own experience fighting Black Mask. Killing her way to the top of the Blüdhaven underworld, trying to force them to run. In another life, he’d have been proud.

Catalina Flores. The Tarantula. Ex-FBI, she’d turned vigilante before murdering Blockbuster, then taking control of the Latino Unified Gang, AKA “Las Arañas,” to keep them out of the gang war. Her methods had been brutal but necessary, like he’d fancied himself to be when he’d first put on the helmet.

She was good in a fight, but not Batman good. Still, Jason didn’t want to take any chances. You wanna survive? You cheat.

It helped that Flores wasn’t wearing body armor.

Tear gas first, then the taser from behind. Bruce’s ice-cold rage had gotten to him—he’d dropped his code in a minute. If he wasn’t going to be Batman, Jason would. Tarantula would live tonight. But she’d get the message.

Flores dropped, coughing and twitching, and in a second the Red Hood was on her, zip tie around her wrist tethering her to the nearby air vent. He snapped her other arm beneath his boot, and she tried to scream, but only choked down more tear gas.

His _kris_ knife was held against her throat in an icepick grip. He waited there as the tear gas dispersed, and she became coherent enough to speak.

“You here to kill me?” she croaked, gasping. “Bastard! We’re the same!”

Red Hood tilted his helmet, waiting for her to continue.

“We kill them because they need killing!” she gasped. “They’re a cancer! I know you understand that.”

Hood nodded. “I do.”

Tarantula smiled, despite the unbearable pain she must’ve been in. “Then why don’t we work together?”

“Because of one fundamental difference between you and me,” Hood said. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear:

“ _I never raped Nightwing_.”

He could see her eyes widen behind her mask.

He pressed his knife against her windpipe, forcing a the tiniest upwelling of blood beneath the blade. “If you EVER touch my brother again,” he growled. “I’m going to come back and finish the job. You can’t stop me. You can’t fight me. You will lose.”

“Bat-Batman can,” she spat, her voice quavering. “Batman can st-stop—”

Jason shushed her with a gloved finger to her lips. “Batman wanted me to kill you,” he said. “You’re alive because _I_ decided. Do not make me change my mind.”

She stared at him, silent.

He sheathed the knife. “Your sanction is withdrawn,” he said. “If you ever come back to Gotham, Oracle will make sure that every thug in the city knows your name.”

She called at him as he turned to leave. “You’re just going to leave me here?”

He turned back, said nothing. No expression showing on his flat mask. Then he fired a grapple at the building across the way, and disappeared over the rooftops.

Nobody hurt Jason Peter Todd’s family. Nobody.


End file.
